According to a quick look at the most recent calendars from each chamber, Kelly Ayotte has vetoed 30 bills this year. Let’s suppose for a moment that nobody goes rogue or plays hooky in the Senate. The votes are there to stick it to her with a 16-8 roll call. Unfortunately, the House is another story. However, something came to my attention after a chat with House Environment & Agriculture vice chair Liz Barbour. Whipping YES votes for HB396 is not an insurmountable task.
On January 7, HB396 passed the House on a 214-119 roll call vote. The sum of those numbers is 333, and 214 is 63% of what Senator Gray would call “butts in seats.” 66.7% is what’s needed to get that 2/3, so let’s look at more numbers.
182 Republicans voted, and only 7 voted NO, but of the 151 Dems voting, a whopping 39 voted YES! That makes this bill stand out from the other vetoed bills, but let’s look at more numbers, keeping in mind that vacancies prevent the total from being 400.
Of the 62 reps that didn’t participate in the roll call, 35 were Republicans, 26 were Democrats, and serial no-show Ankarberg is an independent. Suppose that just a few of those 26 Dems would vote yes and that some of Team Red would have voted NO just for this “thought exercise.” Let’s add 35 to the 214 and the 333, making 249/368, which is 67.7%, meeting the 2/3 requirement.
Let’s look at who these 35 Republican reps are and more details about their records. The following 30 reps were EXCUSED(for whatever reason):
- Aldrich
- Andrus
- Aylward*
- Bordes*
- Boyd*
- Crawford*
- Creighton*(CFR member seeking Ruth Ward’s senate seat)
- Daniels
- Poulin
- DeVito
- Dolan*
- Foote*
- Ford
- Gagne*
- Harrington*
- Lundgren*
- Mannion(brother Tim)
- Miner
- M Murphy
- M Murphy(who since resigned)
- Nelson*
- Speaker Packard(usually doesn’t vote unless a tie)
- Panek(who since resigned)
- Plante
- Presa
- Sirois
- Tenczar
- Toner
- Trottier*
- Varney(serial no-show)
- The following 5 reps were NOT EXCUSED:
- Fedolfi(left early)
- Flanagan(took a walk)
- McDonnell(left early)
- Minor(no-show on 1/7/26)
- Prout(left early)
I have asterisked the EXCUSED reps that are useless RINOs for one or more reasons, such as being an enemy of 91A, an enemy of Gunstock, a secret keeper (from inquiring parents), a sticker tax sympathizer, and/or a school mask policy sympathizer. Talking to such people is often a waste of time, so let’s concentrate on the others. If one or more of them are either your reps or in your sphere of influence, please talk to them about the importance of showing up for Veto Day and voting YES on HB396. Several of them are good people and will probably agree to a polite request. And if you’re in Londonderry, kindly remind Queen Sharon and the Speaker that they work for YOU, their constituent, and encourage them to choose a date BEFORE the election for Veto Day.
And one more thing, as Columbo would say, HB396 passed the Senate without a roll call vote because it was voice voted on Consent. If your senator is not a member of Commerce, it’s probably a good idea to get a commitment to showing up and casting a YES vote, so there won’t be any last-minute surprises. If we can get HB396 across the finish line, it might serve as that much-needed “Rod of Correction” that Her Excellency desperately needs.
